Letter: School traditions teach important values to students

Thursday, Nov. 6, 2003 | 9:27 a.m.

Having read with great interest the article on the "senior squares" controversy regarding Las Vegas High School, I would like to add that this type of devastation to tradition and school spirit probably occurs just as arbitrarily in many of the older schools here in Las Vegas. It did at Western High School not too long ago with the "rolling up" of many of the huge, colorful homecoming murals that had been painted each year by the art students.

Principals in the Clark County School District are moved around in a mind-boggling square dance resulting from our overwhelming growth, and sometimes they move into a school not willing to acknowledge that there are strong ties associated to certain traditions.

Western also had concrete benches in the quad that had inscriptions written on them from the donating clubs and organizations. They are now gone in favor of ugly retaining walls. Additionally, the newspaper at Western, long ago named the "War Whoop," was given a new name for no apparent reason by an incoming journalism teacher, again with no regard as to the why and wherefore of the old name. Perhaps this sounds like an insubstantial gripe that has nothing to do with educating children, but if you look around and see the high-tech new schools being built all over the valley, schools that have all the up-to-date technology, brand-new desks and money from parents living in the outer suburbs, you can better understand that the older schools need to hold onto their traditions just to keep up.

I hate it when I hear my students say that they attend a "ghetto school," not realizing that there is more to a school than its building or its brand-spanking-new desks. Honor our traditions, allow us to carry them into the future, and perhaps we will be teaching our students the more important values of pride, loyalty and respect.

NANCY MAHERAS